I didn't start playing music really until I was 18/19, so it was a relatively new thing. I didn't play much music in school.
I don't know if I'm attention deficit, but I certainly am easily distracted by other things.
I moved to London with this really warped sense of expectation.
The only thing that's ever made sense to me has been sitting in the house by myself making music.
I like working by myself.
I grew up in a place called Malahide, which is by the water and is beautifully quiet, leafy, and part serene.
I've traveled quite a lot and become a coffee nut.
I'm mostly a keep-to-myself kind of guy, but you slowly find yourself getting folded into the musical tapestry.
Food in Dublin has gotten immeasurably better than it was. When I was a kid, there weren't a lot of options. Now you're overwhelmed with options.
The idea of trying to predict what people will or won't respond to is risky.
I'm very ambitious, musically - I want to create great things, not mediocre work.
I don't function well in certain aspects of society, and you can read into that what you will.
You can batter your guitar, and it won't distort too much, which is important for me because I play with my hands a lot - I don't really play with picks.
I've got an Avalon guitar - that's the company that used to be Lowden. They come out of Ireland, and they're like these folk kind of guitars. You can pick 'em, you can strum 'em - they're quite good.
All the really good guitar players - Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, or even Bert Jansch or John Martin - I love all those people. But I didn't start out thinking that I would be a guitar player. In the beginning, I played the guitar so I could sing. I mainly concentrated on my voice.
I'm learning on the guitar all the time.
It bothers me when musicians listen to music from the '60s and try and recreate it. Those people weren't trying to recreate music from the '20s. Why do it?
You play a couple of shows, and these label guys come - and they leave halfway through a show. Then the phone calls just stop. And your heart is broken.
